sheeloopoonam@yahoo.com's blog

Advantages

• Easy to conduct as no follow up is required
• No attrition, as no follow up is needed
• Gives faster results
• Inexpensive
• Suitable for rare and newly identified diseases
• More than one risk factors can be studied simultaneously
• Ethical problem lesser as disease has already occurred

Disadvantages

Advantages

• Incidence can be directly calculated
• Direct estimation of the relative risk (RR)
• More than one outcome of the risk factor can be studied
• Dose response relationship with exposure can be studied
• Temporal association of the exposure with the outcome can be seen
• Certain biases like recall bias, interviewer’s bias are not a problem

Disadvantages

There are two broad types of epidemiological studies:
1. Observational studies – we do not interfere in the process of the disease, but simply observe the disease and the associated factors.
2. Experimental studies – deliberate intervention is made and the effect of such intervention is observed.

Observational studies include:
Descriptive study and
Analytical study – Case control and cohort studies are the two types of analytical observational studies

It is a tool for analysing the interaction between the different sectors of an economy. An understanding of inter-sectoral interactions can aid in optimizing the planning of public health policies.
Such analyses result in creation of ‘Input-output matrices’.
The main function is to make it possible to evaluate a sector’s requirements to satisfy a given demand for goods and services.

Cost accounting is the process of estimating and classifying costs of healthcare incurred by governments or other organizations.
The costs are categorized under various heads e.g. salaries, material costs, radiology costs, canteen, allied services for visitors, burden costs (rent, water, electricity etc.).

References:
• WHO, 1974. Modern Management Methods and the Organization of Health Services; Geneva
• WHO, 2006 . Guidelines for conducting cost–benefit analysis of household energy and health interventions; eds: Guy Hutton,Eva Rehfuess. WHO press, Geneva.
• WHO, 2003. Who Guide to Cost- Effectiveness Analysis; Geneva
• Park’s Textbook of Preventive and Community Medicine. 24th ed, 2017, Bhanot Publishers, Jabalpur

• Usually, once a particular welfare policy is selected after CBA, Cost effective analysis is used to identify the least expensive method of attaining that definite result.
– CEA involves choosing one among different possible ways for achieving the desired result.
– E.g. it was calculated that ‘reduction in indoor air pollution’ would result in greatest economic benefit (after CBA) to the population, various possible ways of achieving this are analyzed using cost – effective analysis

• Public funds are never sufficient. Hence, there is a need to rank various projects so that the officials can select the intervention that would deliver the highest monetary return to the population
• The next ranked intervention would be considered when more funds become available or after the first one is complete
• Hence, in CBA, costs and benefits are expressed in monetary terms i.e.'cost= money spent' and 'benefit = money saved +money earned'.

Purpose of family health study in undergraduate M.B; B.S curriculum
-In a real-life situation, the students get an opportunity to see the relationship between environment and health and the health hazards arising out of environmental conditions.
-They get to learn the assessment of housing and environmental conditions at the community level. They also get an opportunity to apply the community health concepts such as safe water, waste management, vector control, and housing standards.

Puerperium: It is the period of 6 weeks immediately after delivery. In this period, the changes which took place in the organs/systems of the woman during pregnancy, come back to normal. This is also known as the post-partum period.